I built an armada.

After Su Dingping's explanation, Guo Xueyun finally understood what the flat box was for.

"So this is the trigger and this is the muzzle, but what are its bullets?"

Guo Xueyun looked at the flat box with curiosity.

"In fact, I designed two completely different electromagnetic guns."

"I can only say... each has its own advantages and disadvantages."

The principle of an electromagnetic gun is not complicated; it is simply an application of the most basic and simple physics.

In fact, as early as the 30s, there were already electromagnetic rifles that could actually fire in laboratories.

However, as is well known, firing an electromagnetic rifle requires electricity.

There is only one reason why electromagnetic rifles have not actually appeared on the battlefield: insufficient battery capacity.

Because of the insufficient capacity and large size of the batteries, electromagnetic rifles are usually quite bulky.

The initial experimental model of the rifle resembled an oversized cannon.

With advancements in materials science and other technologies, miniaturization has become a natural possibility.

Electromagnetic rifles are designed using two approaches: one is rail-based, and the other is coil-based.

The railgun is very simple, just like the railguns often seen in many science fiction works.

The one Guo Xueyun is holding is a rail-mounted electromagnetic rifle.

The metal ammunition is held between two rails as part of the circuit. Pulling the trigger will supply a huge current, which will generate a strong magnetic field and propel the ammunition.

The coil design involves winding a metal wire into a coil, allowing the ammunition to pass through the center of the coil.

The world's first engineering prototype was a coil-type electromagnetic railgun.

However, according to the laws of physics, the coil will waste most of the electrical energy as heat, which will limit the initial velocity of the projectile.

Therefore, the development direction of electromagnetic weapons later began to lean towards orbital systems.

However, coil-type electromagnetic weapons are not entirely useless, because if the speed requirement for the load is not so high, their cost-effectiveness is relatively high.

If the goal is to achieve greater power, or even a speed several times that of gunpowder weapons, then a railgun would be more suitable.

I was just doing it for fun before, so I didn't need to think about it so much.

Once it is deployed on the battlefield as a real weapon, its application in different situations must be considered.

For example, coil-type electromagnetic weapons are more cost-effective, but have a lower initial velocity.

Therefore, coil-type weapons can be designed as close-range firearms with short firing range, short attack distance, and low cost.

Its positioning will likely be similar to that of a submachine gun.

The rail-mounted design allows it to be positioned as a rifle, or even a high-precision sniper rifle.

Some people may wonder, since both involve firing live ammunition, what is the difference between electromagnetic weapons and gunpowder weapons?

Since its invention, gunpowder weapons have faced a huge and intractable problem.

That is the reliability of gunpowder residue and mechanical structure.

The problem of gunpowder was solved, and breakthroughs in various technologies such as smokeless gunpowder effectively addressed this major challenge.

However, the reliability of mechanical structures cannot be solved in any way.

There may be different opinions on what the most famous firearm in the world is, but the AK-47 is probably known to everyone.

Reality is not a game; there are no guns that can never jam.

The AK47 has many advantages: simple structure, low cost, and easy operation.

But its real advantage is its extremely high reliability and excellent environmental adaptability.

Even if you don't take good care of yourself, a black man can still fire a whole magazine of bullets at you without stopping.

No other firearm could achieve such high environmental adaptability.

The Eagle Tribe was mired in a war with the Iron Monkey Tribe. The Iron Monkey Tribe's humid and hot environment caused great trouble for the Eagle Tribe's army.

It's fair to say that on a real battlefield, how far a gun can shoot or how accurately it can hit the target are not important.

What's really important is that he can fire anytime.

In the game, a character can take a whole magazine of bullets and still run for several kilometers without even breaking a sweat, then take a painkiller and be full of energy again.

In reality, it only takes one bullet to take the life of a soldier.

As long as your gun allows you to fire from behind cover, it's considered a decent gun.

As for accuracy and range... those are things that are required in more specific scenarios.

The biggest advantage of electromagnetic weapons compared to gunpowder weapons lies here.

Gunpowder weapons have various limitations such as smoke and recoil. The complexity of their mechanical structure also makes semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons prone to jamming.

However, the structure of electromagnetic weapons is much simpler than that of existing gunpowder-based automatic firearms.

The structure of an electromagnetic gun consists of three parts: the energy source, the accelerator, and the switch.

Anyone who has worked in engineering knows that the simpler and more robust the mechanical structure, the more durable and reliable it is.

This mechanical structure makes it difficult for electromagnetic weapons to have mechanical problems.

In addition, traditional gunpowder weapons rely on gunpowder for propulsion, which brings another problem: huge noise and various kinds of flashes.

Here's a little-known fact: silencers are actually not very useful most of the time.

He simply cannot completely eliminate the sound of guns like in movies or games.

At most, it can only reduce the sound that could originally travel thousands of meters to only a few hundred meters, and that's all.

Moreover, silencers have a limited lifespan and can cause various problems, such as affecting shooting accuracy.

Electronic weapons are different. They are very quiet when fired, and the enemy may not even be able to detect that you are firing, even if there is a wall between you and the weapon.

This makes electromagnetic guns better suited for close-quarters combat indoors, or special operations and other special situations.

This perfectly aligns with the characteristics of stealth special forces.

Stealth special forces are already difficult to detect, and when paired with such a quiet weapon, they become even more formidable!

Besides these electromagnetic weapons, there is another obvious advantage: the power of the weapons can be easily adjusted.

There's a joke that says humans studying energy is like studying how to boil water, and studying weapons is like studying how to throw stones.

In ancient times, humans began using fire to boil water and cook food.

During the modern industrial revolution, the steam generated from boiling water with coal was used to drive various kinds of mechanical motion.

As for nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, they all ultimately involve converting the nuclear energy from nuclear fission and fusion into thermal energy, which is then used to boil water and subsequently converted into kinetic energy to power various kinds of machinery.

Throwing stones is even simpler.

Millions of years ago, when the first primitive man threw a stone from his hand, humankind began to study weapons.

It started with slingshots, then bows and arrows, then crossbows and muskets. And now, all sorts of firearms and cannons—in the end, they're all just bigger rocks or rocks that explode.

Weapons are becoming increasingly powerful, but in pursuing power, modern gunpowder weapons have had to abandon the ability to adjust flexibly.

Even a slight change in the amount of gunpowder can disrupt the normal operation of rescue operations.

Even when firing blanks, special firearm structures are required to ensure the firearm can operate normally and stably.

Electronic weapons, however, are not subject to so many restrictions. With just a few small switches, the current parameters can be easily adjusted.

You can switch freely between the lowest level of non-lethal, to penetration mode, and then to the highest power.

This gives special forces more room to develop more flexible special operations plans.

Last but not least, the rate of fire of electromagnetic weapons is unmatched by traditional gunpowder weapons.

The toy that Su Dingping made alone could easily achieve a firing rate of over 1,500 rounds.

This means that in just one minute, electronic weapons can easily fire one or two thousand bullets!
If we don't take into account multi-barreled revolving machine guns, a rate of fire of 2000 rounds is already the upper limit for normal gunpowder weapons.

However, in electromagnetic weapons, this rate of fire is far from reaching its limit.

In addition, electromagnetic weapons have an even greater advantage over traditional gunpowder weapons: logistical support is relatively simpler.

Bullets have a shelf life after they are manufactured; if they are left for too long, they may become unusable.

In addition, everyone knows what gunpowder is, so it needs to be handled with extreme care during transportation.

However, the coin-shaped bullets fired by electromagnetic weapons don't have as many problems.

Even if it's rusted, it will still activate.

In fact, if it's rusty, it might even work better.

Tetanus enchantment, you know.

Although, given the initial velocity of an electromagnetic weapon's bullet, being hit would most likely result in instant death.

Having said all that, electromagnetic rifles are not without their drawbacks.

The first and most important issue is that electromagnetic rifles currently offer no advantage in size and weight compared to traditional firearms.

It could even be said to be more cumbersome.

Because electromagnetic weapons, in addition to the munitions that need to be activated, also need to carry an additional energy source such as a battery.

A battery is not light.

There is always a limit to the amount of weight a soldier can carry.

Allocating some of the load to the battery requires reducing the amount of other supplies carried.

Energy is lost during the conversion process; the electrical energy of an electromagnetic gun cannot be converted into the kinetic energy of a bullet without loss.

During this process, the faster the rate of fire, the more heat accumulates inside the barrel.

The erosion and wear of the rails can significantly affect the lifespan of the electromagnetic gun.

Based on this calculation, the conversion rate from the chemical energy of the battery to the kinetic energy of the projectile is actually quite low.

Most of the energy is consumed as heat.

However, all things considered, the electromagnetic gun's unique characteristics allow it to easily adapt to stealth coatings, making it an ideal special weapon.

Therefore, if electromagnetic guns are to be deployed to the battlefield, the first problem to be solved is the heat dissipation of the barrel.

Once the heat dissipation problem is solved, everything else is trivial.

Guo Xueyun gestured with the weapon in her hand and pulled the trigger at the target in front of her.

He gently pulled the trigger, and the coin-shaped bullet shot out from the muzzle, quickly hitting the target in front of him.

"Wow, there's practically no recoil."

Guo Xueyun reluctantly lowered the gun after emptying a magazine.

"So what are your plans? Are you going to just hand over the toy's design drawings to them?"

Su Dingping shook his head.

"Since I have some free time, I might as well help them optimize it."

He took Guo Xueying back to the studio and took out several drawings from the drawer.

"The heat dissipation problem isn't actually that big; I've pretty much solved it."

"The key issue now is how to integrate the high-power power supply, pulse shaping network, cooling system, and precision control system into a single system..."

"I have a question."

Guo Xueyun removed a battery from the back of the gun.

"Battery life must also be a big problem."

Su Dingping smiled and denied Guo Xueyun's guess.

"This is a huge misconception."

"With current battery standards, a standard energy density battery can support more than one hundred shots."

"If we can improve the conversion efficiency, the number of designs could even be increased to over 150."

"If you calculate it that way, there's actually no need to replace the battery at all."

"Huh?" Guo Xueyun was taken aback.

In the real world, the standard amount of ammunition carried by each soldier varies from country to country.

The ammunition load of infantrymen from tribes like Longxia is relatively high on a global scale, generally around 200 rounds.

The Eagle Tribe and the White Bear Tribe will carry a slightly larger number of infantry, but not by much.

For ordinary soldiers, carrying a load that exceeds 30% of their body weight will significantly affect their mobility.

In addition to bullets and firearms, soldiers on the battlefield also need to carry various supplies such as helmets and bulletproof vests.

Therefore, the weight that can be allocated to bullets is quite limited.

Electromagnetic gun bullets can be made to be only 1/5 the size of traditional rifle bullets, or even less!
This means that, with the same carrying weight, even if some of it is allocated to batteries, the soldier's combat endurance will far exceed that of traditional gunpowder weapons.

"If we calculate based on the normal carrying capacity, as long as we can improve the conversion efficiency, we only need to carry one extra battery on the battlefield."

"So there's no need to worry about the battery."

Don't say that without the battery, the electromagnetic gun is just for show.

Traditional gunpowder weapons are just like sticks without bullets.

Guo Xueyun nodded, seemingly understanding but not quite.

Looking at the electromagnetic gun in his hand, Su Dingping suddenly had a bold idea.

"You said... is there any information about superconducting materials?" (End of Chapter)